Service vehicles such as, for example, trucks, vans and cars may carry long and/or cumbersome items that may be used when providing services. Due to the dimensions of such items, conventional shelving systems positioned within the interior of the vehicle are unable to accommodate long and/or cumbersome items, while still leaving room to put other items on the shelves. As such, servicemen typically mount long and/or cumbersome items to an exterior of the vehicle. For example, many servicemen require a ladder to do their job each day, or at least from time to time. Many servicemen will mount the ladder to the exterior of the vehicle, such as, for example, to the roof of a van, when the ladder is not in use. This allows the serviceman to transport the ladder from one job to another, for example. Likewise, many servicemen will store materials used to do a certain job, such as, for example, rebar, pipes, cables, etc. within tubes that mounted to the exterior of the vehicle, such as, for example, to the roof of a van. This allows the serviceman to remove the material from the tube, as needed, after he or she arrives at a job site, for example.
However, when items and/or materials are mounted to the exterior of a vehicle, there is a risk that the items and/or materials will be stolen when the serviceman is away from his vehicle. Furthermore, there is a risk that the items and/or materials may become damaged by environmental conditions, such as, for example, exposure to the sun, temperature, precipitation and/or humidity. Still further, there is a risk that the items and/or materials may fall off the vehicle during transit. The fallen items and/or materials could be lost or damaged. The fallen items and/or materials may also cause damage or injury to people or property if the items and/or materials were to hit another vehicle or person, for example, thus creating liability for the serviceman and/or his company. This disclosure describes an improvement over these prior art technologies.